Starting South 2012 MCYB to Wrightsville Beach

We left MCYB on Friday October 12^th. We had been very busy getting stuff ready to leave. We got up at 4:00 am and were ready to pull out at 5:00 am. Yes, it was dark. We slowly made our way to the inlet to check out the conditions. They were great. There were 2-3 foot waves with 11 seconds between them which made them gentle.

We had a course in for an outside passage so we started on the route. Shay told me to take a nap so I laid down. I told him I wanted a sunrise picture and kept asking him if it was time to get the picture. He told me to go to sleep and he’d wake me for the sunrise. Well, I got the picture. 

Ocean sunrise 2012

The conditions stayed great. We put out our fishing rods and started catching something big and strong. It was hard to reel in the fish. They kept fighting and when they saw the boat they went deeper. Well, we finally got the first one in and it was a little tunny. They are not good to eat so we got rid of it as soon as we could. We ended up catching a total of 8 of these fish. And threw them all back. We decided we’d stop fishing since that was all we were catching. They were fun to catch since they were fighters but not any good to eat.

These fish really put up a fight!



Tinny tuna

Shay called Dwayne to get some advice and he told him he needed to get below the little tinny. So he put on planers to get the lure lower in the water and it worked. We caught a big Spanish mackerel. Of course, we kept him. Shay cleaned him and we put him on ice.

My husband catches me dinner. He is a good provider.

Not my best dolphin shots.

We had a good trip and got into Wrightsville Beach at 4:30. We anchored and called Bad Bunny and invited them to eat fish with us. Of course, they were delighted to have another home cooked meal.

The next day we went to shore and walked around and then visited our friend Terry and his girlfriend, Kathy at his boat, Glass House.  We met Terry at Marathon. We sat around his boat for a while then visited the Arboretum. It was beautiful and we had a great time. Back to his boat to tell more “fish tales”, and then out to dinner and eat wings and burgers. We enjoyed our visit.

Us at the Japanese arch.

Terry and Kathy at the koi pond.

Fish

Is Shay trying out a new fishing technique?

Big mushrooms!

Wouldn't you love to have this playhouse in your backyard?

Statue of kids climbing a tree in front of a tree.

This is a butterfly bush like we had at our house.

 

This butterfly was actually a drum. Yes, Shay had to play it.

Beautiful bridge to the koi pond.

...And of course there was a Loch Ness Monster!

Serenity fountain

Terry and Kathy on his boat.

Sunday morning, October 14^th, we went for another dinghy ride to Terry’s boat then we went for a dinghy ride around the harbor. We enjoyed it so much that we let Dave from Bad Bunny take our dinghy for a tour. They have a sailing/rowing dinghy and it takes all the fun out of putzing around. Dave had been baking and we got a loaf of delicious zucchini bread. As soon as we got back to the boat, we had some with butter. It was great, moist and tasty. Thanks Dave!

We had visitors from another DeFever named Escape. They anchored near us and on their way to shore they came by for a visit. We invited them aboard and had a great time visiting them. They are still working people and are weekend boaters, but they have big plans for later.

Terry called and invited us over for dinner on his boat. We had a great time with them again and enjoyed pork on the grill, salad and grilled potatoes. Kathy had made pumpkin muffins and we took some zucchini bread, so we were all stuffed. It was dark so we had a leisurely trip back to the boat by starlight.

Lauren is back in Wrightsville and we have plans to see her today. Yeah! We cleaned the strataglass and then wiped up the decks since everything was damp from dew. After lunch, we went for a walk around “Wrightsville’s great loop”. It’s a 2.5 mile route that a lot of people do.

By the time we finished, Lauren was getting out of class and came to the boat for a visit. We got caught up on her school stuff and had a good visit. It’s supposed to storm this evening so we ate an early dinner at Tower Seven. Its half priced fajita night, so we all had chicken fajitas. They were good and Lauren took my leftovers for a snack after her dance practice. It’s from 9:30 to 11:30 so she’ll be ready for a snack. But she can’t dance, she has a sprained ankle and has to sit on the sidelines and learn the steps. We plan on seeing her again Tuesday and Wednesday since we are leaving on Thursday.

We had a pretty good storm but thank goodness it didn’t last long.

On October 17^th, Margaret and Ken, from Rocking B got to Wrightsville Beach. They had spent the night at MCYB and came down on the outside. We all had pizza on our boat and enjoyed catching up. We made plans for Lauren to take us shopping Wednesday, when she got off work. So Shay and Ken did their West Marine run, then the girls did our thing. We let Lauren decide where we were going for dinner, and she picked Carraba's. Ken was delighted, since he said they had the best mussels he had ever eaten. We had trouble with our waiter, Ken told him we wanted “an abundance” of the spices for dipping our bread in and he kept bringing a smidge. So…we combined the smidges into a “great abundance” and got what we wanted. He was not one of our favorite people.

Ken and Margaret and the girls getting to Wrightsville anchorage.

...See the girls are there, making sure the anchorage is ok.

We hugged Lauren bye and told her we’d see her at Christmas. Gosh, that seems like a long time away.

We put up the dinghy and got things ready for an early departure. Our friends, Richard and Connie, from Sea Salt, arrived at Wrightsville Beach late that night. They had had problems with their boat and had a very long bad day of travel, but decided to leave with us the next morning.